If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: by the pound - as we speak

Would you please tell me the meaning of 'by the pound' and 'as' in these pieces of a lyric?

The Couch Potato sits around.
He eats junk food by the pound.

He's at the theater as we speak.

If you eat anything "by the pound", you eat a pound of it at one sitting. A pound is a weight measurement.
"As we speak" means "right now" - we are speaking right now and, at the same time, he is at the theatre.

Last edited by Rover_KE; 02-Aug-2013 at 09:41.
Reason: Fixing typo.

Remember - if you don't use correct capitalisation, punctuation and spacing, anything you write will be incorrect.

Re: by the pound - as we speak

Originally Posted by emsr2d2

If you eat anything "by the pound", you eat a pound of it at one sitting. A pound is a weight measurement.
"As we speak" means "right now" - we are speaking right now and, at the same time, he is at the theatre.

Not exactly one pound, of course. The idea is that if you were to measure what he ate, the unit of measure you would use is the pound. (And not the ounce, which is 16 times smaller and the unit usually used to measure food.)